


Lost Boy

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Brainwashed, Gen, Vietnam war AU storyline, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-28 03:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15039362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: He's just a weapon. He's not allowed to want anything.Tried my hand at an AU of Alex’s war years, where the program he ends up in turns the mutants into basically brainwashed killing machines. It wasn't out there, so I wrote it.





	Lost Boy

He watches the rain pouring outside-and inside-the tiny hut he’s holed up in, watching for any enemy soldiers. They’re supposed to be using the road in front of him to transport explosives. When they come, he’s got his orders.

It’s been longer than he was supposed to have to wait, and he’s run out of food. His stomach snarls at him, but he can’t leave the hut. If he does and the convoy comes through, he’ll be punished. He doesn’t want that again…

He’s just a weapon; he’s not allowed to want anything. Weapons don’t get sick or cold or hungry. They don’t bleed or cry. He learned early not to tell Them he was hungry, or exhausted, or hurt, unless it was bad enough that it would affect his performance on the battlefield.

He had a name once, he thinks. And maybe a brother, because he remembers dark hair and a small squirming child in his arms. Maybe. Memories don’t really work right anymore. They skitter around like camp rats and disappear down dark holes. And they come out at night to bite.

He thinks it didn’t used to be this way. He thinks he remembers trying to save people, not kill them. He thinks he remembers others, someone with blue skin and red hair, a boy who could fly…maybe, or maybe that’s part of the stuff that got messed up because flying seems…more weird than normal weird. And a guy with blue fur, and someone who trusted him…no, that has to be another one of the fake memories. No one would trust him. No one would ever trust someone who’s a walking pyrotechnic.

He lets the rain run off his hands, cooling the fire blazing under his skin. He can’t use his power until it’s necessary, even when the power builds up and he can feel it raising a fever inside him. Once he waited so long he couldn’t control it, and it got away from him. Everyone around him…when he woke up sweating and fever-delirious in the hospital, he was told they were all dead. He remembers being punished for that too, but knowing what he did hurt more than the pain They inflicted. He killed his whole team. They used to be his…not friends…because there’s no friends in this place, just allies and people who are slightly less hateful to mutants than the norm.

He remembers Luke, a guy who had been dating an acoustokinetic mutant before he got drafted. Luke used to call him “flaming hula-hoop guy” and wouldn’t stop not matter what. He always said when the war was over they’d have to go home together and Luke would make him try a hula-hoop. He’d even tried to make one out of a bent tree, but it burnt when he touched it. And Luke’s gone, because of this horrible, horrible thing inside him.

He can hear the trucks rumbling in the distance and he lets the fire begin to surge under his skin. _I don’t want to do this…I can’t stop._


End file.
